Hawkeye flygfoto

Low and Slow is the Way to Go

My friend Matte finds a playmate

Paramotors are certainly one of the best platforms for aerial photography. It’s all about basic, simple, minimalistic flight. The bare essentials are here: a wing, a motor and a sturdy pair of shoes. All the necessary equipment can fit in the family car. And a nearby cow pasture works perfectly well as an airfield. Once in the air the pilot has an unobstructed field of view and flies at humane speeds while making minimal impact on the surroundings. Without the exorbitant rental fees that helicopters and airplanes demand, the photographer can stop looking at his watch and start admiring the scenery. Maybe even take an extra few minutes to catch that perfect lighting.

But They’re Not Perfect

There’s no getting around it, paramotors require better weather conditions than most other aircraft. And they are not the platform of choice when one needs to cover large areas. We’re just too slow for that.

MK Hexakopter + Sony Nex-5r

But that’s not always as bad as it may sound. Bad weather often makes for bad photos anyway! And what we miss by not covering a lot of ground, we make up for with our higher quality, closer and more detailed shots.

In the search for even lower and slower flight, we have recently added to our toolbox an UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), or “dreaded drone” as we fondly call it. In this case it’s a radio controlled multicopter and should not to be confused with the remote controlled machines that search out and kill people in remote parts of the world. Our hexacopter is quite friendly and only seeks out new and interesting views that few if any have witnessed before. This is the machine we used when photographing “An Angels View of Uppsala”.